As someone who covers AI for a living and works remotely, it’s safe to say I spend more of my working hours talking to artificial intelligence than humans. To be fair, I also talk to my cats.
But, when AI started appearing in my dreams, I wasn’t sure if I should be concerned. At first it was subtle conversations, trying to solve a problem by asking increasingly specific questions, but then I kept refining requests to change what happened next. So, it was kind of like my dreams weren’t just about AI but operating like AI itself.
Of course that realization sent me down a rabbit hole and I started a dream journal. For several weeks, I kept a notebook by my bed and wrote down every dream I could remember as soon as I woke up. I even wrote in the middle of the night. Then, I fed my journal into ChatGPT and asked it to identify patterns.
Let me be clear, this wasn’t a scientific experiment by any means and I’m not claiming it to be. I didn’t put on a lab coat expecting to prove something. I just really wanted to know whether spending hours every day interacting with AI was influencing what happened inside my sleeping brain.
What I found surprised me.
The ‘AI effect’ may not be as weird as it sounds
Sleep researchers have long documented something called the “Tetris Effect.”People who spend a significant amount of time immersed in an activity often find elements of that activity appearing in their dreams. Gamers dream about video games. Musicians dream about songs. People under stress dream about work.
In other words, our brains don’t always stop processing experiences when we go to sleep. If that’s true, AI may simply be the newest thing our brains are learning to process.
Unlike scrolling social media or watching television, interacting with AI is highly active. You’re constantly asking questions, evaluating answers, refining requests and exploring new ideas. The more I thought about it, the less surprising it seemed that some of those interactions would eventually show up in my dreams.
After reviewing weeks of dream entries, I noticed three specific patterns:
First, AI rarely appeared as a chatbot or assistant. Instead, the structure of the interaction appeared. I was asking questions, seeking information and trying to solve problems.
Second, many dreams felt like prompting. When something wasn’t working, I would adjust my request and try again. That’s a bizarre sentence to write about a dream, but it’s the closest comparison I can make.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, keeping a dream journal dramatically improved my dream recall. I remembered more dreams, more details and more recurring themes than I normally would. That alone made the experiment worthwhile.
The unexpected side effect: my exploding head syndrome felt worse
What I wasn’t expecting was how much attention the journal would draw to another strange sleep phenomenon I’ve experienced for most of my life. Occasionally, I will randomly wake up in the middle of the night from what literally feels like an explosion or electrical crack inside my head. The first time it happened years ago, I thought something had exploded in my house.
The experience is known as exploding head syndrome, a sleep-related condition where people perceive a sudden loud noise during the transition between wakefulness and sleep. Despite the alarming name, it is generally considered harmless. It’s just really, really scary when it happens.
Usually it happens about three times a year, but during this experiment I became more aware of how often it seemed to happen after particularly intense AI-heavy workdays. To be clear, I’m not claiming AI causes exploding head syndrome. My doctor has said that researchers still don’t fully understand why it happens, and factors such as stress, fatigue and sleep disruption may contribute.
But spending all day bouncing between AI conversations, testing new tools and processing enormous amounts of information certainly doesn’t feel relaxing. Some nights feel as if my brain was still trying to answer prompts long after I closed my laptop.
Whether that was a real connection or simply a result of paying closer attention to my sleep, I can’t say for certain. But it was enough to make me rethink how much mental stimulation I consume before bed.
AI is part of daily life now — and we don’t know what happens next
From AI Overviews, Google Search and increased chatbot use, AI has become integrated into our daily lives. The Pope has said it is a threat to humanity and even the people building AI aren’t entirely sure of the effects — on the workforce, our mental health or environment.
A few years ago, AI was so new it was almost a novelty. Today, it’s there whether we want it or not. And, when something occupies that much space in your waking life, it shouldn’t be surprising when it occasionally follows you into your sleep.
Did AI cause my dreams? Maybe not. But it may have become one more thing my brain is stressing about after the lights go out. And if you’ve been spending hours talking to chatbots lately, don’t be surprised if your subconscious starts joining the conversation too.
Let me know in the comments — have you ever dreamed about AI?
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